The present invention relates to a device for fastening elongate elements such as cables or bundles of electrical cables, optical cables, or other cables, ducts or pipework for fluids or the like, the device enabling said elongate elements to be held and guided relative to a support structure.
More generally, the invention relates in particular to manufacturing vehicles, in the automotive industry, in ship building, and more particularly in the aircraft industry. An aircraft includes a multiplicity of pieces of equipment and various apparatuses that for control purposes, require very many circuits of all types (electrical, optical, fluid conveying, . . . ) for transmitting information essential to proper operation of the vehicle as a whole. Consequently, it is important to secure these multiple circuits and to guide them appropriately relative to the structure of said aircraft.
Naturally, the device is not limited to this particular application. Thus, it can be used whenever an elongate element needs to be fastened and optionally guided relative to a structure along a predetermined path.
Numerous types of support are known for use in particular in electrical installations for fastening electrical cables or bundles of electrical cables to walls.
One of the best known devices for fastening elongate elements is constituted by a collar having a bundle of electrical cables passing therethrough. Under such circumstances, the ability to hold the bundle of electrical cables requires the inside diameter of the collar to correspond to the outside diameter of the bundle. Consequently, it is necessary to have a large series of collars of different diameters in order to be able to use the collar of appropriate diameter for each bundle of electrical cables. In addition, it is important to understand that with small-diameter bundles of electrical cables it is frequently essential to include padding in order to fill in the empty space in the collar that is not filled by said bundle, in particular for the purpose of avoiding any damage to the bundle, e.g. under the effect of the support structure vibrating. It should be observed that such vibration is also likely to eject the padding from the collar, which means that such a solution is not entirely satisfactory.
Furthermore, in particular from French patent No. 2 678 704 in the name of the Applicant, a device is also known for supporting elongate elements, which device is constituted by a segment of bar across which said elements can be placed transversely, the bar having recesses formed therein for passing means for clamping said elongate elements. That device comprises a plurality of parallel teeth each having one end connected to said bar, while the other ends of the teeth, remote from said bar, are free, said teeth defining between them said recesses which are thus open beside said free ends. Thus, the device is in the form of a comb enabling the clamping means, such as flexible strip collars, initially to be mounted loosely around the elongate elements that are to be fastened, and then to be inserted into the open recesses while surrounding at least one of the teeth secured to the segment of bar, prior to being finally clamped thereto. Thus, a segment of bar can hold a plurality of bundles of elongate elements, each bundle being clamped by a collar matching its own diameter and being held by at least one tooth of the comb. Such a comb can be made out of synthetic material so as to be easily deformable both elastically and plastically so as to be capable of being deformed if so required by the shape of the support structure.
Although those devices give satisfaction in terms of holding and guiding elongate elements, they nevertheless present drawbacks in terms of the clamping means and of being put into place.
The clamping means are usually metal collars or self-tightening plastics collars.
In practice, for each type of collar and for each manufacturer, there exist as many different references as there are different collar diameters, generally one reference per diameter in millimeter by millimeter steps, which requires the user to devote a large amount of rigorous management to stocks and orders.
Furthermore, putting metal collars into place presents several difficulties for the user, and in particular, for example:                it is essential to use a wrench or a screwdriver for the purposes of clamping, unclamping, or dismantling collars in order to be able to extract at least one elongate element;        there is a risk of damaging elements, in particular cables used in the microwave frequency range or indeed buses which are cables that are very fragile and very expensive, where such damage can significantly diminish the intrinsic characteristics of the cables concerned;        there is a danger of galvanic couples being set up between said metal collars and the various components in their environment;        the installation is heavy because of the numerous parts needed for fastening metal collars:                    e.g. inserts and filling associated therewith for fastening collars in panels of composite materials with screws and washers, or adhesive dowels of the CLICK BOND™ type, for example, that are lighter in weight but more expensive, together with nuts and washers; and            screws and nut-strips for fastening collars to a thin structure (made of metal or of composite material);                        successive and expensive modifications in cable layouts during the design and development stages of the cabling, e.g. because of dimensional dispersion due to manufacture in the diameters of the electrical bundles, leading to differences between design values and actual values after manufacture; and        mounting collars made of stainless steel, to the detriment of weight, but in order to avoid any galvanic couples.        
Similarly, the use of plastics collars leads to several drawbacks such as the following, for example:                putting a self-tightening plastics collar into place requires a special tightening tool to be used and a different tool for cutting off the excess length of tongue, or else a special tool for performing both operations;        as a general rule, removing a self-tightening collar requires it to be cut open with snips, thus making the collar unusable, and runs the risk of damaging the elongate element(s) contained in said collar; and        there is a risk of the collar damaging certain types of very specific and very expensive electrical bundle (cables for use at microwave frequencies, buses, . . . ), or a risk of flattening hoses, such as those for example in the anemometer installations of aircraft.        
In addition, the use of devices made of plastics material, such as those described in above-mentioned document FR 2 678 704, where such devices in very widespread use in the presence of numerous electrical cables, for example, requires different sizes of comb to be designed, leading to significant design time for making tooling plans, for manufacture, and for rigorous management of stocks.
Document WO 87/06559 discloses a clamping collar for a bundle of elongate elements that is constituted by strips of fabric made of Velcro™ type synthetic material. However, that type of collar presents specific drawbacks. For example, it should be observed that the elongate elements come at least in part in contact with the hook fastening means, thereby making the contact surface of the collar rough where it engages said elongate elements, running the risk of causing damage, particularly when coaxial cables with a particularly fine and fragile center wire are included in such a bundle. Furthermore, fastening such a collar to a structure turns out to be difficult in the absence of suitable means.